IAM Brother Max receives continuance at hearing

After a Friday morning hearing, Machinist Maximo Londonio remains detained at the NW Detention Center

TACOMA, WA (June 23, 2025) — Maximo Londonio, a member of IAM Local 695 and decades-long resident of Washington, received a continuance at his hearing on June 20 which will keep Brother Max in the NW Detention Center (NWDC) for the moment. The continuance was granted to allow Londonio time to work with his lawyer and defend himself from deportation; he gained legal representation last week after organizing by his family and supporters.

Londonio has been sounding the alarm on inhumane and unlivable conditions inside NWDC, most recently speaking with Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal. He has reported that GEO Group, the for-profit private prison company that operates the detention center, regularly serves spoiled food to the people held at NWDC and is blocking detained family members from seeing one another.

Labor and community supporters at a Machinist-led rally in June.

After speaking with Jayapal, Brother Max was placed in segregated custody, essentially isolated from the community he had built in his previous unit. Per Tanggol Migrante Network (TMN), a community organization advocating for Filipino migrants and immigrants, he is unable to leave his room without guards and is only given a plastic sheet to sleep with. Londonio’s family and TMN fear Brother Max is being retaliated against for speaking up and advocating for himself and the other 1,600 detainees held in the over-capacity detention center.

The conditions Londonio reports are in-line with accounts from other people currently or formerly held at NWDC, including Lewelyn Dixon, a SEIU Local 925 member who described her three months in detention as “hell” upon her release. La Resistencia, a community group that has maintained a constant presence outside NWDC for years in order to document conditions at the facility, reports some of the people held at the detention center are being separated from their families and communities and sent as far away as Alaska due to overcrowding.

As allies rallied Friday morning during his hearing, Brother Max’s wife Crystal Londonio held up a phone to the crowd, with Maximo on the line. Supporters chanted for his release, and lauded him as a hero for standing up for himself and fellow immigrants unjustly held at NWDC.

While Brother Max remains detained pending a hearing on release or deportation, his supporters, coworkers, and labor family continue to stand behind him.

“Every day, I walk into the shop and the guys ask about him, how he’s doing,” said Ricky Howard, President IAM Local 695 in a statement. “For me, it’s a personal thing to try and get my Filipino brother out of here, because he deserves to go home.”

Allies can support Brother Max by signing this petition for his release and by donating to a GoFundMe to support his legal costs and family while he is detained.